SNOWBALL EXPRESS: In the middle of a...
SNOWBALL EXPRESS: In the middle of a heat wave, Thousand Oaks eighth-graders got a reminder of what winter can deliver: a snowball mailed from Maine. . . . The package traveled 3,000 miles to arrive at Redwood Intermediate School at 8:45 a.m Thursday. “We weren’t sure whether it would be a puddle of water or a snowball,” Principal Richard Johnson says. “The kids couldn’t wait to open it.” What they found was a snowball that had shrunk only a centimeter since it left a Holden, Maine, school a day earlier. The Maine youngsters packed it in dry ice and sawdust. . . . Students here will now try to send some snow back to Maine. “Since we don’t have any snow, we’re going to send a snow cone,” Johnson says.
MEAN STREET: The narrow alleyway in south Oxnard had such a bad reputation for crime that city leaders set up intensive police patrols there and even changed its name: from Aleric Street to the lyrical Cuesta del Mar. . . . But the new name couldn’t change the old ways. Once police backed off, the crime rate climbed. Wednesday evening, two innocent bystanders were shot, one of them critically wounded. (B1)
VALUE ADDED: Lest anyone doubt that Simi Valley High point guard Anthony Tauriello pulls his weight on the basketball court, consider that he has been named most valuable player for the past five years--from junior high through junior varsity (C10). Now he has led the varsity squad to a 16-4 record. “I just love to win, and I can’t stand to lose,” he says. “I’ll do anything to win.”
A GRAND IDEA: The application calls for “ordinary intelligence” and “good character.” But there’s another key qualification to sit on the Ventura County grand jury: the ability to take a year off to analyze the county’s business and rule on criminal cases. . . . “That’s one of the major problems,” says grand jury foreman Dave Cuellar. “We’re trying to get a better cross-section” of members. County residents interested in serving on the next grand jury, to be impaneled in July, can call 654-5025.